Retirement benefits

Mutual fund investors held resilient in the second quarter of the year, "shrugging off weakness in the labor and housing markets and even ignoring the rising cost of oil and gas," announced Tom Roseen, senior research analyst for Lipper, during the firm's press conference last Tuesday on the quarter's results.

Most individuals are not saving enough for retirement because they are not compensating for rising medical costs, lengthening life spans, and the declining availability of pension and retiree medical benefits, according to a study by Hewitt Associates.

Hennion and Walch, a small New Jersey fund firm, is introducing ETFs into 401k plans by wrapping them in mutual funds. Chief Investment Officer Kevin Mahn said the SmartGrowth ETF Lipper Optimal Conservative Index, SmartGrowth ETF Lipper Optimal Moderate Index and SmartGrowth ETF Lipper Optimal Growth Index funds have made their way into 401(k) plans administered by leading companies, including Fidelity Investments.

Despite their tremendous growing popularity for their set-it-and-forget it convenience of automatically reallocating equity-to-fixed income ratios every year for 401(k) investors, target-date mutual funds may not be the best option for defined contribution plans.

Statistics gathered in September 2007 by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) show that state and local government spends more on employee benefit programs than the private-sector.

Retirees may need more money than previously expected in order to cover all their health care costs, according to a supplemental study released Thursday by Fidelity Investments.

When things start to go bad in the stock market or the economy in general, previously ignored things like mutual fund fees can suddenly irk investors.

The Supreme Court's recent decision in LaRue v DeWolff to permit workers in 401(k) plans to sue administrators for high fees will inevitably lead to lower fees-and the end of the retail mutual fund industry's dominance of the market. That's the strong opinion of widely quoted, and frequent financial TV guest Ric Edelman.

By now, investors are accustomed to the creative, informal "Talk to Chuck" advertisements of Charles Schwab & Co. in which animated, yet somewhat realistic, images of people gripe about trying to get through to other brokers, but take heart at the thought of reaching Chuck Schwab, the man, through one of his people.

According to recent analysis by Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a leading global consulting firm, defined benefit pension plans tend to have higher rates of return than 401(k) plans.

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in LaRue v DeWolff to permit workers in 401(k) plans to sue administrators for high fees will inevitably lead to lower fees—and the end of the retail mutual fund industry’s dominance of the market. That’s the strong opinion of widely quoted, and frequent financial TV guest Ric Edelman.

A shocking lack of financial knowledge by our nation’s teenagers has caused a junior achievement organization and an association of retired teachers to band together to help bridge this gap.

Approximately 78 million working Americans are currently working jobs that do not provide them with a retirement plan; however, Barack Obama is looking to change this predicament, according to a report by CNNMoney.com.

Charles Schwab has announced that the Charles Schwab Trust Company (CSTC) will offer target-date collective trust funds for retirement plans.

TIAA-CREF has launched a new service to help sponsors of 403(b) retirement plans meet new Internal Revenue Service requirements by Jan. 1, 2009.

Big changes are brewing in the 403(b) world. For the first time in 40 years, the Internal Revenue Service is mandating new requirements that aim to make the plans more like 401(k)s.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has a pair of initiatives designed to strengthen its position in the asset management market.

Industry leader SEI recently concluded in a white paper that collective investment trusts (CITs) are becoming more popular in the defined-contribution retirement market. In the first quarter of 2008 alone, 63 new collective trusts were launched, and from 2004 to 2007 CIT assets actually tripled.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted unanimously last Wednesday on a proposal that would require mutual funds to provide risk/return, fee and strategy information using the same new digital data tagging system as the 500 largest U.S. corporations.

WASHINGTON - Exchange traded funds (ETFs) have been growing by leaps and bounds lately, but you ain't seen nothin' yet, said a panel of executives involved in creating and distributing ETFs, speaking at the Investment Company Institute's general membership meeting here two weeks ago.